A reader of mailing list to which we subscribe recently asked the following question. We thought it might be of interest to readers and assume some of you may have experience/knowledge in this department, so we are reproducing the question here, with permission:

I am dealing with a factory near a middle school that is renewing its permit to release up to 100 tons per year of TCE. Among other things, we are concerned about the dangers to students and staff at a middle school about 600 yards downwind. One criticism I have heard is that other cases of TCE exposure come either from workers inside a plant or from exposures through groundwater — either directly (as in Woburn) or indirectly, as in vapor intrusion into enclosed homes. The company and the state agency both say that exposure via air over 600 yards is not a documented problem because the material disperses in the air.

Does anyone know of cases where harm has been either demonstrated or confirmed resulting from TCE air emissions from a plant, to people living or working several hundred yards away?

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